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Since I have to teach people methods of self-hypnosis and meditation, I decided to go through a refresher session with myself last night before I went to bed. That’s the only time when the house is quiet enough for me to do that sort of thing. I’m a big believer in practice what you preach and I wanted to be sure I was getting the steps right before I taught more people since I haven’t done self-hypnosis in quite a while. I really didn’t expect anything substantial out of it just because I’m so out of practice. At most, I expected to experience some relaxation and the sensation of being re-energized. That’s the main reason why I engage in self-hypnosis and meditation, not for more past life memories. I have enough of those and I’ve made peace with most of it. These days my work with helping other people make peace with their past troubles keeps me occupied and it actually helped me in making peace with most of the past things that were haunting me. I certainly didn’t expect to go through a new memory from my past through my experimental self-hypnosis last night but I did.

In the eighteenth century, I lived in France. Paris and the surrounding area, to be exact. I have pieced together several events and identified members of my soul group over the years from that life, although my nineteenth century past life has always taken precedence because it’s well-documented. I can’t prove the eighteenth century past life without learning French again and digging through scattered historical French records. A lot of it was lost in the Revolution too. Frankly, I don’t feel the need to go to great lengths to prove a life existed when I already endured that grueling process with Fanny Chamberlain for the last twelve years. I know myself well enough now to recognize when I’m experiencing legitimate past life recall and when I’m not. Proof is for other people. The experiences are for me and the growth of my own soul.

Very rarely do I talk about my life in France because parts of it were so traumatic that they caused phobias in this life; namely, loud crowds, the dark, things around my neck, and most weaponry. Most people only know the basic bare bones story, which is that I was the youngest daughter in a low-ranking noble family and we were all executed among thousands of others in the Reign of Terror. I was executed a few weeks after the Queen, I think, but I’m not sure the time is correct. That’s the thing about past life puzzles. They just don’t come with a time stamp. You can see why I don’t enjoy talking about it openly though. The people who know the details are trusted enough that I know they’re not going to talk about it.

I had a father who worked in what I believe was in the financial department of the French government. I had a mother and an uncle as well, me being closer to my uncle than both of my parents. I had an older sister (waving to said sister who knows who she is!) who spent most of her time that I remember lobbying for her marriage to a man by the name of Claude. I don’t know a lot about him other than the fact that he wore a uniform for something like being a guard or some kind of military associated with the royal residences. They were crazy in love with each other but for whatever reason, our father stalled the engagement for years. Maybe he was hoping she would marry above herself instead. I don’t know. I do know that there was a lot of resentment toward him from her.

So last night when I set myself up for the self-hypnosis, I wasn’t thinking about that lifetime at all. I was actually thinking about trying to relieve some pain I’ve been feeling in my right hip. It was supposed to be just a simple trip in and out of the meditation state and then I was going to send the lesson out to the people who needed it.

Deep into the session, I felt very relaxed and pleased with myself that I managed to talk myself out of feeling so much pain (mind over matter does work). A hazy image started to take shape of a doorway with heavily detailed white molding at the top, and as I looked through the doorway, the images got clearer of a man speaking seriously to my sister and my mother standing off to the side behind her. My sister wore a sort of dark sage green dress. I remember that clearly because I really liked the color. She had a full face and a body like the women you see in Botticelli paintings, meaning she wasn’t a skinny girl like I was but she would have been considered a beauty in those days. I remember her cheeks and lips were plump. Maybe I noticed it because I wanted to look more like her. I don’t know.

I came into the room and I thought her color looked bad like she was sick. The man handed her a document and she started to cry while she read it. She saw me at that point and shouted (in French), “They murdered my Claude!” She fell on her knees and let out this horrifying, guttural scream. I approached her and put my arms around her. I distinctly remember feeling the fabric of her dress in my hand and the way her skin felt when I kissed the side of her face. She was completely rigid and I had to pull her to me because the sound of her crying was difficult to take without trying to pacify her.

The thing that tells me that this was a real past life memory is quite simple: in this present life, I can’t use my hands. I don’t know what the texture of embroidered silk feels like in my hand, nor do I know what curly hair feels like, or another person’s face, or anything like that, yet I experienced those things in the self-hypnosis session as if it was an everyday occurrence. Had it been a flight of fancy or a random dream, I would not have experienced the physical sensations associated with hands because I don’t use my hands at all now. This classifies as evidence of knowledge previously unknown to the person experiencing the past life memory. It is a legitimate form of evidence.

As far as I can surmise, Claude met his end sometime in what’s known as the September Massacres. A lot of other little things pieced together tell me that memory took place close to the end of my life. In September of 1792, I only had about a year left to live. I can’t say it with certainty but I believe Claude was working in or around either Versailles or the Tuileries at the time of his death. I believe hundreds of people were massacred at Versailles on September 9, so that is a contender for the point at which he was killed. My sister spent the last year of her life, as far as I can tell, living like a zombie. I think she wanted to die when her time came, although only she could tell me what was in her mind and heart for certain. I don’t think I knew Claude that well but nobody should have died that way.